


Malebolge

by yuletide_archivist



Category: The Unit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-21
Updated: 2008-12-21
Packaged: 2018-01-25 04:11:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1630814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      Thanks to uschickens for a very last minute beta, and for ladyjax for talking me off a cliff.<p>Written for Selkie</p>
    </blockquote>





	Malebolge

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to uschickens for a very last minute beta, and for ladyjax for talking me off a cliff.
> 
> Written for Selkie

 

 

November 2007

Members of the Unit had made plenty of small things disappear. Diamonds, for one. 

Tiny rocks, really. Tiny rocks worth 4 million dollars, but they were truly nothing more than tiny rocks. 

Valued just because they were beautiful, rare, and hard as they came. 

Plenty of petty tyrants had slipped this mortal coil at the hands of men in the Unit. Plenty of others still lived, just as surely the result of the hands of men in the Unit.

A thousand small decisions, some good, some bad, got left behind between the briefing room and the drive home. Plans that could have been, attacks that never happened, catastrophes averted that would never make the evening news. 

The Unit was good at making things and people disappear. One more shouldn't be a problem especially for an operator as experienced as Mack.

Blaine figured he could trust his second in command to make one single dogtag disappear, even if the man to whom it belonged was currently laid up in a hospital bed. That was what he was thinking when he stepped off the plane, pallbearer for a coffin that contained both the story and the truth of Sergeant First Class Hector Williams and all the differences that lay between what those in the Unit knew of the truth of him and what the rest of the world would be allowed to know. 

He turned his back to the hearse, told the Colonel what he expected to hear, and reached for Molly's shoulders. He was grateful he had her strength to seek solace in. Grateful the world and the Army allowed him to do so truthfully. Sad he couldn't offer the same to all the men on his team. He never thought there would be an upside to Grey being wounded, but there was. Grey wasn't here on the tarmac. Would be able to mourn in his own way.

Some time later, as he polished the insignia to put on Hector's uniform, while Molly worried about remembering the protocol for ribbons (yes) and medals (no), all he could think of was a line from Shakespeare's _King John_ :

_Grief fills the room up of my absent child, Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me, Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words, Remembers me of all his gracious parts, Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form._

Blaine had already lost one man in his team. He knew that. The reminder was the empty uniform he was assembling in his kitchen. 

He gently corrected her that it wouldn't be Williams who got the second Purple Heart. It would be his parents. 

Grey would get one too, for his own physical wounds, but he'd still be one short.

Blaine allowed himself the luxury of a sigh and then moved on. To practical things. After all, he himself couldn't lose a second. Not to grief. Not to a witch hunt. Usually the brass didn't worry too much about what the enlisted did or didn't get into in their off time. But he'd feel better when he knew Mack had sent the dog tags back to the place the Army and its policies wanted them to be.

He'd entrusted Hector's body to Mack's protection on the trip home. He supposed he could manage to entrust a reputation to Mack too. Surely a reputation was easier to preserve than a man's life. At least, in their line of work.

** May 2007

It was the very last thing Tiffy had expected to happen at the grocery store. Sure, she had a bit of a reputation as a woman around whom crazy things happened.

And truth be told, it wasn't an _entirely_ underserved reputation.

She titled her head as she looked at two kinds of Cheerios: brand name and generic. She tossed a box into the basket. Generic it was.

A quiet throat clearing brought her back. Bumping into a sullen looking Charlie at Kroger's just off base? Well, that was unusual even for her. 

"Hey there, Charlie," she said softly, letting her weight rest heavily on the handle of the shopping cart as she crossed one leg over the other at the ankle.

Grey turned to face her, met her eyes briefly, and looked down again. "Tiffy. How are you?"

She shrugged and fiddled with the strap on her purse as it tried to escape. Always surprised her--the disconnect between the respect and quiet confidence in Charlie's voice and his unwillingness to look her in the eye for too long. "About as expected. You?"

To her surprise, Charlie's eyes met hers again. It was a rare man who didn't stare at her, even if usually his eyes were directed somewhere south of her face. She'd never known what to make of Charlie's strangely quiet ways. Never seemed disrespectful. Never seemed uninterested. Never seemed fearful, although if anyone knew Mack well enough to know to steer clear of her, it'd be the guys on Mack's team. She'd been arguing with herself for years what it was about Charlie. This week, she was about ready to vote for insecurity about his height compared to the rest of his team. The guy before Bob, Barrett, was around Charlie's height. With Bob thrown in the mix, Grey looked a little like the kid with his big brothers. 

The flash of pain in Charlie's expression took her by surprise when he asked, softly, "How exactly do you wives stand it?"

As if the damned thing had a life of its own, she felt her eyebrow creep towards her hairline. "Stand what exactly?"

"Not knowing anything when we're on deployment."

For a moment, the tables felt turned, and she gave into her impulse and threw her head back and laughed. But when he looked at Charlie again, she realized she'd done the wrong thing. "I'm sorry, Charlie. It's just--it's just a little strange to hear that from one of the guys who keeps taking my man away."

Grey held his hands up in a kind of surrender. "Hey, man, I don't make the decisions. I just go where I'm told. And sometimes, I'm not even told. I've fallen asleep on a transport more than once expecting to wake up one place and finding myself in not just another time zone, but a whole other continent."

She paused for a minute, considering. "Hadn't thought of that." She waited, but Charlie still held her gaze, and that change alone was enough to command her full and serious attention. "And as for your question, we don't. It makes it a little easier that we have each other. But there are times I'm so sick of seeing Molly and Kim that I'm tempted to get in the car and drive to another state just for the change of scenery. Faces, I mean. People who don't know. Aren't always guessing, you know?"

That earned her a smile, even if Charlie was looking at the ground when he let it show. "Yeah, I know."

She was just on the verge of asking what exactly made him ask when Charlie starting shifting a little on his feet in that way he did before he ducked out of a conversation. Tiffy figured that was her cue to get awfully interested in products other than breakfast cereal. Like maybe a whole aisle over. Pretty much the first requirement of a Unit wife was speaking fluent non-verbal guy speak. After a mumbled few phrases that sounded good and said nothing, she found herself walking toward the juices.

It wasn't until the drive home that she began to put the pieces together. That Grey was here and Williams was deployed. If she hadn't seen how off-kilter Charlie was that day, she'd have thought it was one of the Unit engineered plans--to see if she'd spill any secrets. But the pain on Charlie's face--the way he approached her more like one of the girls--that pain was distinct and spoke volumes.

Strange indeed that for that moment Charlie was one of them instead of one of the guys, but Tiffy had been in the Unit too long not to recognize the signs. She spent a whole hour trying to figure out which would be worse: to be a member of the Unit with access to more details or stuck just where she was.

In the end, she figured either way was never enough. 

*** November 2007

Mack should have known better. Come to think of it, he _did_ know better, it just must've slipped his mind. Understandable, it slipped, what with everything that was on his mind right about then.

He did in a general sort of way know that it was always the little things that got you. 

The first little thing he ran headfirst into wasn't the thought of the hundred strangers' hands that touched Williams's body on its long way back from Beruit.

It wasn't the sympathy in the eyes of the coroner. 

It wasn't that extra weight of guilt sitting on Top's shoulders even in the truck while they were still under fire.

Aw, hell. These days, when weren't they under fire, one kind or another.

It was the simple declaration spoken by the dog tags hanging in Hector's locker. He--hadn't expected that. Even if he should have.

It wasn't like they were the first. And they wouldn't be the last, no matter what a few REMFs wished.

He'd known, just like Top had known. He was pretty sure Tiffy and Molly knew too. The way they'd stopped teasing Charlie gently about Annie or whoever else caught their attention that week. The way that the pity that they had had for Hector after his engagement didn't take shifted to that way women had of looking at men when all their scheming minds were set on was trying to match 'em up with someone but then bled right on over into a kind of silent bemusement that they were part of another secret they all kept. Part of a truth they all knew but didn't speak.

Still, all Mack had was what his gut told him. Opening the door, taking the tags out, seeing one of Hector's and one of Charlie's hanging there together made it all real.

It wasn't like he hadn't known. He wasn't like fucking Brown who didn't have a goddamned clue. 

He rubbed his eyes, missing Barrett again. Years since he'd left, and it still wasn't nearly long enough that that wound didn't feel fresh.

It was a relief all the same to be able to let muscle memory take over as he prepped Hector's weapon for the service. His body knew what to do. He let it take over.

A smarter, wiser man would probably be concerned that it had gotten to be relaxing to strip and clean a weapon like that. Mack was many things, but he wasn't a man with that kind of smart.

The gun and the ritual of preparing it has a role to play. He had a role to play. A path to follow. Protocol to hold them up. The Unit buddy grieving his team member. Not the man worried about his friend who just lost--well, who just lost that.

He let his thumb run first over Hector's name stamped into the metal. This tag would go to Hector's parents. Hector's parents--who'd be talking to Charlie soon enough. He shook his head. Some days he thought he had it harder than Hector and Charlie. His relationship with Tiffy was complicated enough. Today, he wasn't so sure. 

He let his thumb run over Charlie's name, stamped into another piece of metal. Charlie who was alive because of the way Hector had fought for him in Beruit.

Maybe he would see about another set of tags for Hector's parents. It looked, now that he thought about it, like this set already had a home to go to.

**** November 2008

Kim stood next to the Colonel. She had stopped shaking, mostly. The Colonel said "Bob would be proud."

And suddenly, she understood. _Knew_ in a way she hadn't before today. "Maybe Bob's better off not knowing," she said. She was a little surprised by the steel in her spine and her voice. She was a few steps closer than she'd been before to realizing the weight that came with certain kinds of knowledge. This she could hold. Knowing what Bob would do if he knew? That might break her.

Acceptable losses.

The light laugh underneath Colonel Ryan's voice told her she'd made the right decision. "Mrs. Brown, you're one smart woman."

And she felt it. Respect. Colonel Ryan viewed her as one of the team, in her own way. She got a taste of just how intoxicating that approval could be. Ryan didn't know she was terrified. Terrified of how easy it was becoming to keep secrets. Tell half truths. Misdirect peoples' attentions and expectations. 

It had been a gradual descent into this level of comfort with falsehood. It was almost impossible now to recognize that woman she'd been--was it three? Or four years ago? Years that felt like decades when she'd insisted on her right, on paper, to live off base. Before the Unit and its women had swallowed her whole. Outlined one small step at a time the difference between her life on paper and her life in reality.

And yet, there were points--moments--in the past when she could see the path begin.

The one that stuck out in her mind wasn't the most important or even the most shocking.

Maybe she remembered it so clearly because it marked a turn in the road. A glimpse into a side of Bob, the man she thought she knew without question, that she'd never seen before. Family Readiness Group project. She didn't remember which one, exactly, now. It wasn't the damned flowers, but she couldn't remember what it was. Truthfully, she supposed it didn't matter.

Because whatever it was, it had been interrupted by Tiffy appearing out of nowhere. She had breezed in, like Tiffy did, and said to Molly plain as day, "I think maybe we should stop worrying about trying to set Hector up."

Molly had given Tiffy one of those looks. This one managed to say a whole bunch all at once. Not that that was unusual. It was just about then Kim was beginning to speak Molly. As close as you could get to summarizing it would be something like this: please tell me you did not act a fool and sleep with Hector, you'd better not be drunk, and lord save me from fools and Gerhardts despite whatever on earth my husband sees in them.

Tiffy feigned offense. For about half a second, and then she dropped into giggles.

She climbed up on the counter, just as comfortable as you please. Slammed her hand onto the formica. "I think maybe Hector and Charlie are roommates."

Kim rolled her eyes and took a sip of tea. Maybe Tiffy was drunk. That would explain a lot, actually. 

Molly's mouth opened like she was going to say something and then shut again. 

"Tiffy," Kim started slowly, "we already know--"

"Not just roommates. I mean _roommate_ roommates."

"I thought," Kim said, "that Hector was dating that friend of yours from Kitty's."

Tiffy shrugged. "I know they've gone out together, but I just had the weirdest conversation with Charlie at the grocery store."

Molly paused. Kim definitely recognized that look. "Tiffy, I don't think it's any of our concern--"

Tiffy laughed again. And then the amusement dropped from her face. "If it's serious, it's definitely our concern, after all--"

Kim couldn't help herself. "Tiffy, what Hector and Charlie do or don't do isn't any of our business." Lord help her, there was something about that whole nosiness of Tiffy given her own sordid past that made her want to throttle that woman sometimes. "And how can you even be sure--"

Tiffy looked Kim square in the eye. "Charlie's got the look you get. And the one Molly thinks she hides. When the guys are on deployment, and we don't know exactly what's going on, but whatever it is, it's not right. Williams is overdue or I'll run for president of the FRG next election."

Molly closed her eyes and sank into the kitchen chair. 

Kim was still speechless. She expected better of these women. "I cannot believe that you're upset about this. It's not like--"

"No, Kim. We're not upset. But think about it. There's a reason the women of the Unit are the tight-knit group we are. It takes our support to keep them going. But we need support too. We have each other. Charlie and Hector, if they are _roommates_ , don't have that. Neither of us are offended, and we certainly have experience keeping secrets. It just needs to be noted."

That night, lying in bed, Kim tried to sort things out in her head. She tried for another week before trying to feel Bob out. His response surprised her. There had been strangely emphatic conversations about regulations and policies and the need to follow them. Bob had surprised her, and not in a good way.

It was the first time that she began to really see how there was a part of her life that Bob didn't know about--that he _shouldn't_ know about.

Kim looked at Colonel Ryan again. "No sir, I don't think we need to bother him with this at all." Which was kind of proof of how far she'd come. She had just issued an order to her husband's commander. Worse, she expected him to take it.

Worst of all, he did with a smile of approval.

She felt herself slip a little deeper into the grip of the Unit and hoped it was the right thing to do.

**

 _Dia de los Muertos_ Fort Bragg, NC. 2009

She never let it show. Almost no one ever knew. Molly could just about count on one hand the number of times she had actually let the fa?ade crack in front of others. 

Today, she was a nervous wreck. Worried she was going too far. Worried she wasn't going far enough. Worried that in a year or two, Jonas would retire, and that there wouldn't be someone as deft to take her place. It had been hard enough getting Rebecca Moore on board to play her part, but Molly was sure that it wouldn't work if any of the wives of the currently very alive team members tried it.

Plausible deniability was the requirement. And Rebecca gave them that.

Every letter in Charlie's body language was screaming in protest. Molly could see that. But she could also hear Rebecca loudly declaring that her request for the day was to have a poet sit by her side. 

She watched as some members of one of the other team started to get out of their seats to tease Charlie. But she also watched as Jonas, Mack, and even Bob silently took up overwatch positions behind them.

The other team got the signal loud and clear. 

Charlie was settled in at the table with Rebecca. When Annie arrived later, she was seated on Charlie's other side. 

Molly couldn't be sure, maintaining her distance as she was, but in her heart she believed that Rebecca's occasional whispers to Charlie were the instructions she had suggested.

Life in the Unit was always complicated. Even a simple conversation with a stranger could begin to seem like a minefield of lies, half-truths, and no go topics. 

What never ceased to amaze her was the way that everyone who touched the Unit seemed to get so good so fast at finding the truth hiding between the lines.

She made the rounds, saying all the right things to Annie, Marjorie Barrett, and even Rebecca. The tent was pretty much empty, and the younger women were laughing and chatting at they cleaned up and shooed her home.

Turned out that was a good thing, because as she was gathering up her jacket and purse, Charlie appeared at her side, his deep brown eyes locked on hers. "Thank you," he said quietly, putting his hands on hers. "And you know I can't thank them outright, but can I trust you to let Jonas know that I'm--"

She smiled up at him. "Of course."

** February 2009

It was a rare day indeed that Charlie found himself sitting down to a cold beer with Top. 

But that was what was happening, no two ways about it. He lifted his bottle to Top's. "Salud."

Jonas just nodded. 

"Something on your mind, Grey." From Jonas, it was a statement, not a question.

"Just wondering. You read Dante or just Milton?"

"You gonna read me more of your poetry if I answer that."

"Will it make you answer if I say no?"

"Yes."

"Then, no. I'm not going to read my poetry at you."

Jonas smiled and took a long pull of his beer. "Yes, I read Dante. In translation. The Army never saw fit to teach me Italian, let alone Latin."

"You know who Dante put in the 8th circle, yeah? Right next to the traitors?"

Jonas nodded. "Falsifiers. Those who did not commit fraud against blood, guests, love, or honor--they waited for Number 9. But all other falsifiers."

"We live in not just a house but a whole fucking world we've built ourselves out of mirrors. How are we not doomed to the eighth circle? How is--how is Hector--"

"You know why so few operators have careers as long as mine?" Jonas willed his team member to hang on. To not say things out loud that couldn't be taken back. It worked. Charlie nodded.

"Yeah. The human body wasn't meant for HALO jumps and bullet collection."

"No, sir. That is not it. We can push past pain. You know that. I know that. Hell, the fresh faced recruits brought in for selection know that. It is because too many of us kill off a little part of ourself every time we go out. You want to know the secret to how I held onto this much of myself this long? I realized long ago that this--what happens when we're on deployment. It may be important. It may be vital. And there may be moments that are glorious. But this? This is our hell. Hector--Hector has earned his reward for enduring this as he did. With grace. With honor. Without malicious intent. No God on earth would doom him to more of this for eternity, Grey. No God could. You remember that, Grey. But don't you dare use that as an excuse to get out of this early, you hear me?"

"Yes, sir, Top." Grey took another swig of his beer. 

He'd always suspected that Top knew, but now he had as much confirmation as he needed. Figured he finally knew for sure that it wasn't an accident that that damned necklace of teeth Hector had picked up in Papua New Guinea disappeared not long after the Beruit trip.

Why he'd ever thought that the team didn't know everything that mattered, he would never quite figure out. The maze of covers and half-truths they lay down never seemed to matter. The things that mattered, they always, always knew.

**** April 2007

Hector had seen some pretty strange behaviors in the men of the Special Forces. It was kind of a thing, actually. A reputation, he supposed. A deserved one, truth be told. There were shooters who were strangely superstitious about the underwear they wore while deployed. Athletes? Athletes had nothing on the operators. He'd always been grateful that Top discouraged that. 

Put your faith in a talisman, and all anyone had to do to throw you off your game was take that talisman away.

Still, the way that Charlie had been glaring at him after the trip to Papua New Guinea was weird even in circles where weird was the baseline.

It had been a random Tuesday night when he finally confronted him about it. "Seriously, Charlie. You've been a little off since I got back."

To anyone who knew Charlie as well as the whole team did, the signs were unmistakable. Charlie wouldn't look up. He got quiet. Not the quiet surety that suddenly possessed Grey around, say, high explosives or deadly nerve gas. That kind of quiet Hector could work with. 

No, this kind of quiet was the kind that made Hector almost think he was seeing glimpses of what made a teenaged Charlie join a gang. The nervous energy that made him seem an easier mark than he actually was. Maybe as easy a mark as he had been back then, before he found that confidence.

"You ever think maybe you got some leftover hallucinations from whatever your hot island babe gave you on your trip?"

But Hector wasn't fooled by the words. He strode over to where Charlie was neatening up the clutter on the table where their mail ended up in one giant mess neither one of them wanted to deal with.

Further proof they were both nuts: shooting people in other countries was preferable to mundane chores.

"Charlie," Hector said slowly. "Man, I know you. Don't do that."

Grey pulled himself up to his full height and projected all the menace and power he had. "Do what, exactly, Hector?"

"Deflect." He waited, holding Charlie's gaze. Irrationally pleased when it worked.

"What's to deflect? I was making a joke."

Hector watched Grey's hands, nimble fingers, stubby nails, shuffling through junk mail and bills they had already paid. "No," he said," you weren't. You were upset about something. You need to tell me what."

Charlie's mouth snapped shut, and he just shook his head. Hector took another step forward. "Charlie--"

Before Hector could even process what was happening, Charlie's lips were pressing against his. It was so sudden. It was the last thing he expected. And in a split second, he realized that it was the thing he most wanted but had been most terrified to admit, even to himself. 

When they broke for air, all Hector could only think in single syllable words. _Yes. More. Please. Now. Everything._

But there was Charlie, perched, as always, on the teetering edge of a cliff. Unsure. Brave as hell. Unyielding and fragile. Hector reached out and let his hand come to rest on Charlie's waist, just above his belt. "That. That was all?"

His breath caught in his throat when he felt the warmth of Charlie's hand sliding from his chest. Lower, lower, lover until--he closed his eyes and breathed to keep from pushing Charlie through the nearest wall. "No. Just the beginning."

**** November 2007

They didn't speak much about it. Didn't have to. It just was. One day it wasn't, the next day it was as if it had always been. Come to think of it, he didn't even remember what day it had happened.

And that was how Hector's dog tag came to be on Charlie's chain. One day he slipped the tags over his head. They weren't on Bowstring at the time. He was just running onto base for some time down at the shooting range. Since he was in BDUs, tags were part of cover--a habit he didn't even have to think about. 

It wasn't until he was back home that night, slipping out of the uniform and into something not covered in sweat, dust, and gunpowder residue that he looked down and noticed that the two tags on his chain were no longer identical. 

Different though they might have been, from where Charlie sat, they matched nicely.

Looking back, he was amazed that he remembered that moment so clearly. It was one moment of pure truth, pure real that stood out among the blur of cover and strategy. He was lucky to have it.

Still, he was strangely grateful when Mack dropped by the apartment. He'd been out of the hospital. The service was over. Hector's parents had left and took the body back to be buried in the family plot. He wasn't sure what they knew and didn't know. 

But Mack dropped by for a beer and to couch surf a few more days after another spat. Charlie tried not to be angry that Mack could sleep soundly in the bed in what had been Charlie's room before all of this. 

Mostly he was grateful that Mack showed up with pizza, a lot of beer, and a shit-eating grin a mile wide. Mack getting into trouble with Tiffy was normal. Normal Charlie could handle.

Late into the night, several cases of beer past wise, Mack abruptly brought his eyes back into focus and dug into his jeans pocket. For a minute, Charlie was held in suspense, not knowing what on earth was coming. 

A second or so later, two warm dog tags dropped into his hand. Charlie didn't need to look at them.

"Though you ought to have those," Mack said.

"Hector's parents?" Charlie asked, struggling to keep his voice even.

"Got a nice parentally-appropriate, regulation-friendly set." Mack took a longer than necessary swig of his current beer. Charlie was grateful for the moment to put his cover in place as he thought about the fact that an operator would know he wouldn't want to feel cold dog tags hit his warm hand. Too visceral a reminder.

"They realize they didn't get the real deal?"

Mack puffed up for a minute. "Are you suggesting that I'm such a shitty operator I can't fake a set of grade A dog tags?" Then, Mack's voice slipped into his best rendition of Colonel Ryan. "Sergeant, see that in the next batch you bring in for selection you weed out the ones who can't find their ass with two hands and a flashlight, will you?"

Charlie laughed, happy to use that excuse to wipe at his eyes. "You know, Hector always did the best Ryan impression of us all."

"Yeah, he did."

Silence fell and Charlie weighed the tags for a moment. Maybe he'd put them in the burn box. Maybe he'd give them to Annie. He didn't have to decide right now. "Thanks, Mack."

"De nada. Now, where'd I leave that other case of beer. Maybe I left it in the hall."

He watched a surprisingly sober Mack move toward the door and open it. Charlie was completely unsurprised to find Jonas and Bob waiting there with another case. "Looking for this, guys?"

Charlie smiled. Yeah, that's exactly what they were looking for. 

 


End file.
